“Welcome to English News KCTV - I’m Nik Brountas….”- and with those words he leads into the top story of the day from the studio of the new English language news service dedicated to serving foreigners living and working on Jeju island.

Today I’m interviewing Nik at the modern and bustling KCTV office in Yeon-dong. Kang In-Hee, the production director also sits in on the questions, and I get the proceedings started by asking how he came to be anchorman: “I knew someone who does some English editing work for some other programs here. Through him I learned they were looking for someone to start the English news… they were looking for someone who had a green card [family visa]… I came in and did a camera test and met everybody.”

The amateur league baseball season on Jeju has begun and the huge stadium behind the bus terminal in Jeju City is alive with the sounds of the game. However, it’s something you usually don’t hear much of - apart from a circulating rumour that some foreigners are participating on an undetermined day at an undetermined time. Jeju Life managed to track down one of those foreigners, Canadian Troy MacLellan, to find out more.

MacLellan’s history with Baseball

Gorgeous island paradise is commonly used to describe this heaven of an island on which many of us are lucky enough to call home. Indeed it is, and with so many wonderful sites to explore, there is no better time to get started than when the weather is warming up and the sun is shining bright. That’s right folks—summertime! You can always take one of the gazillion taxis on the island or the crowded bus line to get around, but it’s not nearly as fun as having the wind whipping through your hair and the cool breeze running across your face as you’re zipping down the open road on your very own scooter or motorcycle. But, I don’t have a scooter or motorcycle. There’s a simple solution to your problem. His name is Mr. Sang Jin Lee, and he is one of the Lees you need to know.

Here I was in some unknown suburb of Reykjavik, Iceland, having an impromptu Playstation Singstar competition with my new Icelandic friends. Previously we had been out together at a birthday meal and I had bought my most expensive glass of wine ever ($40!). Fast forward a day later and I was skating across Reykjavik pond with an Austrian girl who had been building a large walk-in camera from old schematics in Vienna. Later still, I would have a guided tour of the city from a balding Icelandic man who seemed proud of how small all of Iceland’s largest institutions were. Fitting then, that my first Couchsurfing experiences were where, in 1999, American Casey Fenton first formed his idea for the Couchsurfing project.

Meet Hayoung. She’s a typical Korean girl leading a not-so-typical life. She lives on Jeju-do with her father, who owns a restaurant on a bluff overlooking the ocean. He also happens to be King of the East Sea. Hayoung dreams of one day becoming the world’s greatest chef, but those dreams were recently shattered when judges at an international cooking competition called her cooking “trash.” She’s a determined young girl though, and one day she’ll make her dreams come true with a little help from her friend, Kenegito.